DESCRIPTION: The Sixth Gordon Research Conference on Molecular Mechanisms of Microbial Adhesion and Signaling will be held August 3-8, 1997 at Salve Regina College, Newport, Rhode Island. This conference will continue the unification of adhesion and surface studies with signal and signal mechanism topics begun in the Fifth Conference. The Conference will address the structure, function and regulation of surface-based elements including adhesions, pili, and receptors, and will add an emphasis on signals and signal mechanisms. The topics will include bacterial-bacterial and bacterial-host signals, their synthesis and their mechanism for action. This unification is appropriate to continue as ongoing research continues to show the close connection between adhesion and communication. The conference will be international and interdisciplinary, and will provide an excellent opportunity to present and discuss the latest finding and ideas, and thus stimulate future research that will further improve our understanding of microbial adherence and signals. These topics have significance for our scientific understanding of the environment (soils, interactions with plants, bioremediation), of materials (biofilms, marine fouling), and of human, animal, and plant disease (host-pathogen specificity, virulence determinants, adhesion and signaling). The broad representation of bacterial systems, and multiple approaches from physical chemistry to molecular genetics to cellular biology, should provide the chance for synergistic new understanding by the participants. We request funds to subsidize travel and conference registration for 20 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. We will solicit funds from industry for other speakers.